Iran is being suffocated by the current administration. They strategy for the past 4 years has been just to tolerate it until the administration changes.
They have almost no interest in chaos in US. Just a government that respects the Iran deal (JCPOA) so they can trade with the world again.
It's quite fortunate for them that there is a candidate with an extensive record of creating chaos when elected.
Use downvote button instead.
If he is a 1-term president Trump will enter the history books as presiding over an increasingly peaceful American foreign policy as the 21st century progressed. I don't think that is on him as much as geopolitics; but if the world at large sees him as the chaotic candidate that mistake is on them. Bush's administration was a disaster of world-shattering proportions and the world should be quite happy not to see its like again for 100 years.
Certainly agree about the neocon warmongering. I am incredibly glad that is over for the moment. There is a huge national security establishment that encourages use of force, and I'm glad that finally there's some right wing pushback for once.
I wish Obama had been a lot more pushy to finding ways to end the US involvement in the mideast.
Mission fucking accomplished. This is the first time in my life that I've felt a civil war was a real possibility.
The "call to arms" on Facebook have been pretty damn successful where I live. I personally know people who've picked up their rifles at a moments notice and drove out to Whereeverthefuck and hung around waiting for The Protestors to arrive. It's only a matter of time before one these escalates, they have itchy trigger fingers and cops are telling these people, "if they have a knife in their hands, there's no much I can do."
Things remained tolerable when the economy was good. But now with so many people out of work...
This is the Cold Wars long term effects coming into play - when the US would lie to their citizens and install dictators across the world. The more realpolitik politicians get to make policy the more violent the world gets.
That was true until Trump though. https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/hiding-in-plain-sigh... That foreign actor sowed a seed, cultivated it and it blossomed according to possible years-long plan and that one for once succeeded in incredible ways. Most likely others failed, most likely luck played a role. But here we are. Sponsoring some candidates rather than others is picking up a particular candidate.
Indeed - but my (short) reply was intended to lampshade the aversion of many public figures and certain news-media outlets to name Russia specifically when the evidence suggests they're the lead perpetrators: either out of fear of being retaliated against or because they want to suggest or imply that the Democratic party is "just as bad as the Republicans" and that they're in cahoots with _some other_ equally nefarious country's disinformation campaign. Which is concerning because discouraging the electorate from voting by spreading messages of false-equivalency is exactly what Russia's IRA does.
They don't, actually.
Russia wants to sow chaos in the USA and Europe, because these powers constrain its territorial ambitions. They want strife in China too, but have less ability to sow it there. They want Iran excluded from the international oil trade to improve prices, since they rely heavily on oil to maintain their otherwise decrepit gangster economy. They also border on Iran; normalisation between Iran and the west would open the door to further geographical encirclement.
Saudi Arabia wants Trump to win because he won't interfere their war in Yemen and ignores their support for Wahabbist extremism. They also benefit from Iran's being weakened in the oil markets generally and the middle-east specifically.
Iran just wants not to starve and/or collapse into a viscious civil war turbo-charged by Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Europe doesn't want Iran to collapse, because it would trigger a gigantic refugee crisis. It would also disrupt the global oil and gas markets, making Russia's leverage via gas pipelines more potent. Especially for NATO states in the east.
China wants stability in trade and latitude to pursue its slow-rolling program of dominating Asia. The current administration has been bad for trade, but has neglected to support diplomatic order. China has pushed hard into the South China Sea (throwing an unexpected, massive burden onto stalwart allies, Australia) and into buying votes in the UN's General Assembly. A Biden administration would slow that down. I suspect that China slightly prefers Trump and that the idea that it prefers Biden is a talking point invented for Trump's benefit.
So no. The USA's rivals and allies want different outcomes.
At the high level, I agree that they probably mildly prefer Trump over Biden, for reasons of Biden being much more able to work with our regional allies to constrain them. But their ability to effect that result is small compared to their ability to sow chaos. And chaos also serves their ends: a world where Biden is having to deal with domestic unrest and sharp partisan divisions is a world where he's constrained in his ability to make the plausible commitments needed for international alliances, which are in large part based on trust and faith.
False! Behind the perceivable problems and shortlist of problem countries ("oh Russia was involved? :| >:|") is the reality that all or many countries and private actors are also doing this and have for a long time. It is the system itself with the vulnerabilities. Many allies would be doing the same thing to maintain their relationships or further improve it.
The abstraction is that people are primarily interested in their interests.
Its not about the things you care about, it isn't about your ideology, it isn't about how social media will be distorted to routinely and precisely show you your worst fears coming true by your own countrymen.
It is about outsized influence, and a historical enemy sowing discord to create favorable geopolitical outcomes for themselves is just one manifestation of that. Sure, other countries and individuals are using this as an instruction manual too, and some people are trying to get a high score of real world effects from easily manipulable people. But this is just one of many things happening.
Foreign actors are primarily interested in sowing chaos, and only secondarily interested (at most) in getting a particular candidate elected. The best case scenario for those who want to interfere with the election is for the US government to be widely perceived as delegitimized and ineffectual, which opens up space for them to pursue their own interests, which are often not the interests of the United States or regional neighbors.
That doesn't mean domestic actors won't be doing things that delegimitimize the election on their own terms, but it does mean it will be very hard to tell genuine criticism from foreign-sponsored agitprop. The best thing to do is to listen to those who are ostensibly on your own side with a high dose of skepticism.